Nebojsa
Malic is traveling. He will return with a new column next Thursday, April 4.

March
21, 2002

Once
Upon A CountryYugoslavia, RIP

Sing,
O goddess, the anger of Achilles son of Peleus, that brought countless ills
upon the Achaeans. Many a brave soul did it send hurrying down to Hades, and
many a hero did it yield a prey to dogs and vultures, for so were the counsels
of Jove fulfilled from the day on which the son of Atreus, king of men, and
great Achilles, first fell out with one another.

It
took the Achaeans ten years to finally overcome the defenses of Troy, and then
only with a ruse of a large wooden
horse, which the gullible Trojans brought into their city ignorant of the
warriors hidden inside.

Eleven
years is what it took the Empire to destroy Yugoslavia, through wars no less
 and oft more  bloody, treaties no less false, speeches far more cynical and
goodwill no less treacherous than those in the first epic of the Western civilization.

On
March 14, 2002, the leaders of Montenegro, Serbia and Yugoslavia sat down with
the European legate Javier Solana  who three years ago headed a vicious attack
on their country  and agreed to kill
Yugoslavia, erase her from the map, bury her name and legacy, and in her
place establish well, nothing, really.

Yugoslavia,
RIP

The
"state" that Vojislav Kostunica, Zoran Djindjic and Milo Djukanovic
signed, and Javier
Solana concocted in some political petri dish, is
now "Serbia and Montenegro," just as all the US State Department maps read
all these years the Empire refused to recognize the state led by Slobodan Milosevic.
Busy with the usual malicious rehashes of fabricated
history, reports in the West gave few details. What did emerge, however,
is telling. Apart from cartographic convenience, other aspects
of the treaty unmistakably identify its greatest benefactor.

Both
Serbia and Montenegro will have their own Presidents, their own currencies,
customs and financial systems. Theoretically, the defense and foreign affairs
should be under joint jurisdiction. But military service would be served only
in the conscripts' home states, effectively creating separate Serbian and Montenegrin
armed forces. Ambassadors to, say, the UN would rotate between Serbia and Montenegro,
creating de facto separate foreign policies. So the joint legislature
and the joint President it chooses would have nothing to do.

Normally,
a powerless government is a good thing for people's liberties. In this case,
however, the governments of two republics would retain the near-absolute power
they currently have, and the "federal" government would simply be
there for show and to waste the impoverished taxpayers' money.

The
Undead Union

Finally,
the agreement is only
valid for three years, whereupon any member of the "union" that
secedes is guaranteed recognition by the EU. The way it was framed, secession
is pretty much automatic unless both partners decide otherwise. If Djukanovic
stays in power, or is replaced by one of his more rabidly separatist allies,
there is no chance Montenegro's regime won't opt for recognition.

The
new "state" is but a vampire, an undead monstrosity which is destined
to live for three more years until the EU mercifully stakes it through the heart.
Meanwhile, it will subsist by sucking blood from the people on which it was
imposed.

Follow
The Money

The
official excuse of European and American meddlers in the issue was that Montenegro's
secession would embolden the Bosnian Serbs and Albanians in Kosovo and northwestern
Macedonia. The papers are very fond of it, as are government, NATO and UN spokespeople.
As usual, this is utter nonsense.

Unlike
the Bosnian Serb Republic, Kosovo or northern Macedonia, Montenegro used to
be a constituent member of the old Communist federation, with a full right to
secession. This right was retained even under the now-dead Federal Yugoslav
Constitution. No one in Serbia has ever disputed the existence of that right,
merely the character of those who advocated its use. And even so, at the end
of last October Serbian politicians were perfectly happy to stand aside and
let Montenegro's voters choose their fate. This is where Solana and the Empire
intervened.

Three
months later, Solana accomplished yet another "triumph
of Western policy," right after his vaunted "peacemaking" in
Macedonia. And here
is why.

One
of the provisions of the treaty was that both states would continue to pay their
foreign debt jointly, and if one could not shoulder its share, the other would
have to. Some took this to mean that Serbia
got a raw deal, since Montenegro has only 650,000 inhabitants and a lot
more foreign debt. Others think Montenegro got
cheated of its rightful recognition now. But it is really the EU
creditors who are profiting from this deal, at the expense of them both. Whatever
happens, Europe will get its pound
of flesh

Could-Have-Beens

Solana's
concoction, admittedly, is better than civil war, the Black Plague, or some
form of apocalypse. So is just about anything else.

With
Serbia and Montenegro as independent states, their politicians could no longer
scapegoat the other republic for all the ills of their misrule. People in both
countries would have been forced to actually shoulder responsibility for their
rulers and their actions. Many in Serbia think that without foreign subsidies
and smuggling, Montenegro would be as economically viable as Nauru,
minus the phosphates. They will have to wait for three more years to see if
they were right.

Historically
long separated, the two lands have spiritually always been one. Only recently
did Djukanovic's regime embark on a campaign of carving out a separate ethnic,
religious, cultural and even linguistic identity. His followers' virulent
separatism would shock their ancestors, who considered themselves Serbs
and wrote great
epics to that effect. Even the last king of Montenegro, Nikola Petrovic,
wrote of "Serbs no longer being slaves" in his famous ode Onam',
Onamo ("Yonder, Over There").

It
no longer matters, it seems. The "two eyes in one head" have finally
been gouged out. Driven by their lust for power and dazzled by Imperial favors
 whether just promised or actually delivered  the people who swore to protect
and defend Yugoslavia decided to kill it. The fact that they did so with the
help of a man who led the NATO
aggression in 1999 only adds insult to injury.

The
dead, however, feel no pain. Only the living.

The
General's Papers

Only
a day after Yugoslavia was dissolved, it was betrayed. Military security officers
arrested
the retired general Momcilo Perisic as he met with an American diplomat in a
roadside inn south of Belgrade. The military claimed Perisic was passing
classified documents to the American, leading to rampant speculation that
the former general, a bitter foe of Slobodan Milosevic, was trying to turn over
evidence of the former president's involvement in alleged atrocities in Kosovo.

The
US was "outraged"
and issued a "sharp rebuke," but that was to be expected. No state
 especially not the Empire  ever admits to espionage, as there is something
inherently dirty in the whole process. Usually the pattern is denial, followed
by expulsion of the compromised diplomat and a gentlemanly agreement not to
bring the matter up again. Again, the Empire does not follow the custom. It
will most likely attempt to pass this off as an "unwarranted detention,"
demand an official groveling apology and maybe even the sacking of those responsible.
Serbia is a vassal, after all  how dare it have the temerity to arrest
Imperial legates as they go about their business!?

Perisic's
fate is less certain. He went out of his way to meet with the US diplomat, so
they were probably not just out for coffee and sports talk. If the Yugoslav
 or whatever it will be called  military produces materials they claim Perisic
was passing to the Americans, he may be damned in the court of public opinion
and even tried for treason.

Passing
classified documents to the Americans, while legally treasonous, pales in comparison
to what Perisic's boss  Djindjic  has done over the past year or so. Thus
throwing Perisic to the wolves might help Djindjic cloud the issue, so the general
may yet rue the day he threw his lot in with the "pragmatist" Prime
Minister.

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